Charlotte Johnson is an Ordinary High-School Student from the USA whose parents have forced her to move to Edinburgh, Scotland – with predictably resentful results on her part. So far, so normal. Then, one day, she is almost run over by a lorry.

The Good, the Bad and the Mediochre (Available now) – in which Charlotte pretty-much forces her way into Mediochre’s ongoing adventure in returning a rare dragon egg to its mother and thwarting the dragon-slaying attempts of an international smuggling ring. But things are never that simple around Mediochre, and it starts to look like there may be a grander conspiracy at work here...

Black, White and Shades of Mediochre (Ditto) - in which a mancy-related murder practically on Charlotte's doorstep gives her a way back into the Mantically Aware world and Mediochre's life, just in time for them to get uncomfortably caught up in the increasingly-murky issue of Undead-human relations. Naturally, it soon turns out that something even worse than murder is going down here, and if someone doesn't stop it then the consequences will be world-changing...

In addition, it has become customary for the author to write a "Christmas Special" short story every December - seemingly working his way through the main party of characters and focusing one story on each. Thus far, these include:

For Christmas 2012, the author also wrote a Christmas Special short story featuring Joseph Carrion which functions as a sort of prequel to the main series. It was initially posted to his Facebook page, but eventually uploaded to the website here.

The main series provides examples of:

Aerith and Bob: Mediochre and Charlotte. Joseph and Dhampinella. The list goes on.

Aliens in Cardiff: All sorts of magic-related nasties seem to turn up in Scotland these days...

Anti-Hero: Mediochre and Joseph both, in different ways. Mediochre aims to be an Ideal Hero but his impatience, hot-bloodedness and frightening capacity for cruelty when you push his Berserk Button cause him to fall short. Joseph, meanwhile, is a Pragmatic Hero more than willing to commit morally reprehensible deeds out of loyalty to Mediochre and his plans.

The Apprentice: A standard method of education among the Mantically Aware. Dhampinella is Joseph's.

Author Avatar: Mediochre looks much like the author did aged fifteen. The author has also noted that, personality-wise, Mediochre is similar to what he would be if he was an idealist. And more badass.

Badass Teacher: Mediochre and Joseph are both university professors. Joseph actually has an apprentice with him during most of his adventures – although the apprentice is also a badass and doesn't really need protecting.

Clueless Mystery: Mediochre has a habit of revealing clues that suddenly make everything obvious just as we get to The Reveal. In fairness, though, there are usually other, less obvious clues scattered around beforehand.

Charlotte is Phlegmatic (Well, sort-of - believers in the Four Humours would probably have filed her under Leukine, actually, but compared at least to Mediochre she's a bit of an introverted people-person.)

Immortality Immorality: A major theme of the series. Maelstrom in the first book, the necromancer in the second and Stormhold Elect in Born to Raise the Sons of Earth are all major Heavy villains who can cheat death and are at least partially motivated by a desire to continue cheating death. Melz somehow manages to be an aversion, remaining a kindly old lady. Mediochre himself... is trying to avert it, but he's prettybad at it.

Impoverished Patrician: Mediochre is technically a laird (among other things) but seemingly requires multiple jobs to get the money needed to justify not selling his house.

Mysterious Middle Initial: Averted with Mediochre Q Seth, who freely admits that his middle name is Quirinius. However, in a more meta example, the author publishes under Calum P Cameron, and makes several jokes out of what the P could potentially stand for.

Shrouded in Myth: Mediochre may or may not be intentionally fostering some of the rumours about him.

Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Dhampinella (technically it's auburn or copper, but her eyes are very green to make up for it, and she's the second-most significant female present). It adds to the whole 'striking, inhuman creature' shtick she's got going on.

Single-Power Superheroes: Most of the mancies seem to revolve around being able to do one specific superpower really well.

Smug Super: Mediochre has a few abnormalities that could be called super-powers. Modesty is not one of them.

Empty, empty, empty, empty except for a teacher who clearly didn't get enough of her classroom when she was actually teaching or something...

The Cavalry: Subverted. The timely arrival of the MIPF at the end wasn't quite timely enough to help much.

Check and Mate: Subverted for laughs. Mediochre, being a smug git, sets things up to let him pull one of these on the Big Bad - but forgets to factor in the fact that he has the body of a scrawny teenager and the Big Bad is capable of cutting off his airway before he can finish.

Mediochre: This whole scene could have stepped out of a cheesy fantasy adventure were it not for the fact that scenes are incapable of stepping anywhere due to severe deficiency in the foot department.

Shirtless Scene: Mediochre, Melinoe and Joseph each get one. Mediochre's is completely non-Fanservicey because he's physically fifteen and being eaten by a worm at the time; Melinoe's would be Fanservicey if she wasn't covered in her own blood at the time (mind you, some people like that...); and Joseph's... well, [[Fanservice the fans deserved something]]...

Arch-Enemy: Only a year after he finally offed Maelstrom, Mediochre gains another one in Carnage.

Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Springheel's rapsheet - thirty-three counts of theft, twenty-two of arson, twenty-five of GBH, at least twenty-nine of rape and eleven of murder. And one hundred and seventy-seven counts of property damage, mostly to roofs.

Batman Gambit: Queen MAB's plan to turn Mediochre against Fervour by getting him to go Papa Wolf over Aoife - whom he barely even knew beforehand - is pretty impressive, especially considering she wasn't in the country at the time.

Be My Valentine: Sort-of inverted. Valentine is sorta romantic on the surface but the real Valentine underneath it all is an asshole.

Big Damn Kiss: Between Mediochre and Joseph. No, it's not what you think. Probably.

From a Certain Point of View: Weirdly combined with Blatant Lies, above. Mediochre claims his fear-induced hallucination was of "a lecturer". As Charlotte points out, he is a lecturer – and he did indeed see himself.

A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Mediochre's certainly is. It also appears that using psychomancy on an insane person drives you insane, which is why nobody's tried it on most of the Floor Theta in-mates.

Monster Sob Story: Unlike the rest of Floor Theta, Valentine Scruff seems to genuinely not know how much damage he causes and can't work out why all his girlfriends die. Although he does still keep trying to make new ones, so he's either evil or really not very bright.

Bigger Bad: Quite possibly Stormhold's schizophrenia. After all, who else do we know with necromancer powers and a thousand different 'voices' inside them?

Chekhov's Gun: Literally, with Joseph's pistol. Zig-zagged, however, in that it's not the gun that finally kills Stormhold. Also, of the six bullets, only three are useful and one doesn't even get fired.

Chekhov's Gunman: On reflection, Stormhold Elect - or rather, his schizophrenia - quite possibly counts as one given the nature of the necromancer in Black, White and Shades of Mediochre.

Titled After the Song: Specifically, after a line from "Christmas is Coming", a traditional British Christmas carol.

Tragic Keepsake: This is probably why Mediochre is still wearing that cross, many years after Pigeon's death.

Victorian London: The entire story is a flashback to the Victorian era. So, naturally, it has to take place in London!

A Visit from the Yule Goat (Poem)

Bad Santa: The "Saint Nick" turns out to be a goat-like monster using a disguise to sneak into people's houses and plant eggs which will eventually hatch into murderous babies.

Enfant Terrible: The Yule goat's species doesn't appear to be sapient enough for true evil, but it does have a life cycle that involves the babies taking the form of the first creature they see and then, uh, disposing of the original.

Parental Neglect: Dhampinella and Melinoe bond over their shared experiences of crappy parenting.

The Quiet One: Dhampinella was this anyway, but it turns out she was worse as a child. She has exactly one spoken line in the entire story. Oddly, Melinoe is apparently good enough at reading whatever signals Dhampinella does give off to continue the conversation, leading to something like a Newhart Phonecall between two people who are both in the same room.

Sunglasses at Night: Demetrius keeps his sunglasses on inside. It's because he intends to set off a light charm if things don't go his way.

Teleport Spam: Vitus is so twitchy he can't help doing this. He uses it to his advantage when he fights.

Titled After the Song: Named for a line in 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas'. The full phrase is "Good tidings we bring/To you and your kin", making this an ironic Complete-the-Quote Title, since the tidings brought between the two families are far from good.

Those Two Bad Guys: The Viscountess uses her brother Vitus and her broodchild Orcus as henchmen.

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